Early development and predictors of morphological awareness: Disentangling the impact of decoding skills and phonological awareness.

BACKGROUND

Morphological Awareness (MA) has been demonstrated to be influential on the reading outcomes of children and adults. Yet, little is known regarding MA's early development.

AIM: The aim of this study is to better understand MA at different stages of development and its association with Phonological Awareness (PA) and reading.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES: In a longitudinal design the development of MA was explored in a group of pre-reading children with a family risk of dyslexia and age-matched controls from kindergarten up to and including grade 2.

OUTCOMES AND

RESULTS

MA deficits were observed in the group with literacy difficulties at all time points. PA was only found to make a significant contribution to MA development at the early stages of formal reading instruction. While first-grade decoding skills were found to contribute significantly to MA in second grade.

CONCLUSIONS

Evidence supporting a bidirectional relation was found and supports the need for adequate MA intervention and explicit instruction for "at risk" children in the early stages of literacy instruction.